Game launches to main screen and after create profile etc. nation, port and other settings and start the game it crashes?

Answering after year, but - can you look at resolution at settings? In my case that was causing crash in exactly same moment as yours. You cannot set resolution to be higher than your screen resolution. (for egzample my laptop have 768 horizontal resolution, but in game there is option for 1024. If I pick it - game just crash without giving any usefull info on why it did.

Very new to this first game version, I'm trying to find references to the flotsam and the castaways which show up briefly. I've tried to figure ways to interact with those sprites but I can't guess what to do.
Are they called 'flotsam' and 'castaway' or what are their names? Neither right-clicking nor left-clicking seems to offer any options. Are they 'just there' to be looked at or under what circumstances may some interaction be achieved?

A good question but not one that has anything to do with the topic of this particular thread besides being about the same game. A new thread would have been in order.

I forgot too many details about the game :-( and cannot give an answer.